Gaming

Because of a number of podcasts I've listened to lately, I've been thinking about the games I've loved playing (or watching someone play) the most over the years. I'm definitely a JRPGer as I love games that allow/reward me being obsessive-compulsive. And I think I might become even more so if the 360 can get some more titles out that are less FPS (as I suck at that >_<). The whole Achievement points thing is "collectible" enough to satisfy my JRPG nature in games I would normally never try.

Anyways, here's a list of my all time favorites (mock away):
1. Chrono Trigger - Chrono Cross sucks if you go into it hoping it's a long awaited sequel...
2. Final Fantasy VII - It rocks. 'Nuff said.
3. Super Smash Bros. - Me vs my bros vs a fam friend = wonderful times!
4. Mario Kart - Same equation, same result, house rules.
5. Arc the Lad (1 and 2) - The anime kinda sucks...
6. Most of the Zelda series - Link to the Past / Ocarina of Time / Majora's Mask / Phantom Hourglass. I've played and beaten all of them and liked them as a non-sequential whole.
7. Mass Effect - This one I've barely played but have watched enough times to still want to try to play it (damn you, stupid camera!!!).
8. Battletoads - The game is janky, I won't lie, but the most fun is seeing who can get the farthest cause it's so hard.
9. Viva Piñata T.I.P. - It's my Pokemón. In my defense, I've not seen the Viva Piñata tv show.
10. E.V.O. - I know my memories of this game are better than it was because I tried to play a port. This is sheer nostalgia.
11. Sim City - The original crappy graphics one. I build this world as a test to all the humans in it. Then I catastrophe you for no real reason.
12. Harvest Moon - I love the entire series. Moo.
13. DDR - Which I am no longer fit enough to play. Happy college memories...
14. Super Mario Bros. - Platforming at its simplistic best.
15. Final Fantasy IV - Replay on the DS if at all possible.
16. Portal - The cake is REAL!!!
17. Legend of Zelda - I still haven't beaten this one but loved it anyways.
18. Final Fantasy VIII - I liked the play after we finally figured out how to best utilize it.
17. Metroid - Not Prime. Classic.
18. Rune Factory - I loved the first one and am liking the second one.
19. Final Fantasy XII - Aside from some enemies being way harder than their levels would indicate (of course from side quests) the story is decent and the play great.
20. Dead Space - There are whole sections of this game I was too weirded/grossed out to watch but it was an overall great game that I will NEVER play. EVER.
21. Fable - It has some downsides to it but is relatively fun.
22. Super Mario 64 - That was one of the best games, definitely, of the time and showed the Mario team can do more than just regurgitate stuff they've done before.
23. Rock Band - What? DDR is on this list too.
24. Ecco the Dolphin - That game is SOOO tree-hugger type stupid but I loved it anyways. Swim free!!!
25. Pokemón (Diamond/Pearl) - There is no redeeming quality to any portion of this series. But, Gotta catch them all!!

And that's enough of that. ;P

Most of the games I still love from childhood are simply because it was me and my bros grinding through levels or competing. Others, like VII, we had one play while the others were helpful watchers with one reading the map (usually me drawing one as we went along) and the other writing down keypoints from the story so we knew what was going on (can you say ADD + OCD = clusterfusion?) and made most one player games into things we could all enjoy.

*sigh* Memories...

Aug 9, 2004 - Jan 16, 2009

The lifespan of my time at Cope Associates, just about 4 1/2 years.

I feel used.

The Higher-Ups had said we'd all weather the storm together. We were in a more stable portion of the sector. It'd be lean but we could get through it.

Then we didn't get the jobs we'd shot for. 2nd place is still Loser-#1. Add in the jobs that are still on hold in January because of spending freezing and you have a surefire recipe for disaster.

Me, another production-level Chris, and a project-manager Ty got "laid off" yesterday. I suppose it's because we can't bring in as much work as others, directly and that with the experience the 3 of us have we can probably get jobs faster than others.

Whatever.

I suppose it hurt so much because it's the first job I got wherein I could use my degree. There is hurt in there because the Higher-Ups weren't honest with us. Knowing up front that layoffs would be imminent should we not garner new work would have been refreshing and alert us to the possibility that this could happen.

There's also alot of anger.

At myself for being naive enough to believe them. At them for tossing me away. At the world in general for being so f'd up. *that's a constant and nothing new*

They'll miss our presence eventually. But as someone who'd hoped to be a "settle into one job and that's it" kind of person, I'll miss our presence NOW.

Archidraca

Have you ever Googled your own name/handle? That's always a fun thing to do.

I have a fairly uncommon name so almost any time I search for "me" I'm going to get "me". Cicelie gave me 260 unique hits, maybe 1/16 of which were about me. That was the most.

My full name got me about a page and a quarter, a few of which were just genealogical sites who were trying to match me up by my surname.

My handle got 34 hits, 10 of which were language translations of English pages (I recognized Japanese and Arabic) and one short article which had used a photo I did of one of my bentos (news to me).

What did I learn from my little jaunt to find myself?

I have some small photo taking skillz! *does happy dance*

Obento gone is the weight

Or at least it's coming off faster and faster. I seem to be eating more and more healthily. I used to eat maybe a single meal plus a few snacks here and there every day. That meal was a quick dinner before I went off and partied. Healthy, right? Now, my big meal is lunch (fits right in with the bento obsession, doesn't it?) with very few snacks that I've not planned out the night before and fruit almost every day in good quantities. I sometimes get a dinner in there when I'm cooking, moreso now that I cook and pack the night before for lunch the next day (and sometimes dinner the next couple of days as well...).

I started off trying to lose weight and size when I hit 212lbs and was pushing a size 14. I was a size 14 when I was in High School (for most of my Senior year...) and a solid size 12 for the rest of it. This is despite me being exceptionally active in Marching Band and other activities at home that required me moving continually. But I weighed only 135lbs, max. I know that hitting 200lbs made me feel rather large. I think that hitting size 14 prompts me to feel FAT.

I'm now back to a solid size 10. It's a start. We'll see if I can get down to a 9. I doubt I'll ever get back down to the almost under size 8 I used to be. (All sizes I use are based on Levi's as they're pretty consistent.) Last night, after I ate, I weighed in at 201.5. Not bad, eh? This morning, for kicks and giggles, I decided to do a round 2 weigh-in. 199.5lbs!

Last night's dinner (, today's lunch and likely tomorrow's as well as Sunday's) was Shepherd's Pie. Mike's grandmom makes one with a gravy, beef, peas and carrots filling with a beautifully scored mashed potato top. That's a bit different from the one I grew up with. So I tried to make what I remember eating so many times. What we had at home was a drier beef, cheese (makes everything better), corn and mashed potatoes. I got close but missed a little on getting it to set up straight out of the oven. The meat was wonderfully seasoned. The corn crisp and light. The potatoes held together wonderfully and the cheese top browned beautifully and evenly. But it didn't set up firm til this morning out of the fridge. I think next time there will either be more of a cherry pie item going on with the potato crust or some sort of cheese glue. And maybe peas as well...

We shall see.

Here I go a'Bento-ing...

Mike finds it very sad that I've spent so much time on the bento thing. But it's a fun way to make my "food lowering intake plan" (diet is a hatefull four letter curse word that I refuse to use in conjunction to myself) all the more interesting. Who wouldn't want to eat something that looks as beautiful as it tastes? I think that's why they do things like that at the fancy restauraunts (aside from trying to hide exactly how little you actually get in a meal). I'm planning healthier meals now while still eating enough to fill me up. Last week alone I lost a half a pound and another inch off my waist. I know part of that is me gardening. But the food can't hurt. And I still get to eat my Samoas! Greatest cookie known to mankind and the reason I joined the Girl Scouts in the first place.

I think I shall definitely have to have a shamrock themed bento tomorrow. I have much to work towards in the creativity department when compared to others who're in the same bento groups as I am on Flickr. I'm a bit better than average but I wish to be amongst the best.

On the aside, this is a great way to try new foods, Asian or otherwise, that I normally wouldn't mess with. The smaller portions make trial a bit less daunting.

Shortest Netflix Account EVAR!

So a few things changed since I last had a Netflix account.  They were sued (and lost, but still screwed everyone) over fixing rental queues so that new members got movies faster while under trial accounts, and existing users took the hit of longer times to make up the difference.  They also added unlimited streaming to most accounts, and this guy added support for Netflix in Windows Media Center.

The goal: I want to stream movies to any room in the house, mostly the bedroom and the living room.  I want to pay a reasonable flat rate.  I want it to tie into Media Center because I have a kick ass remote that works on my PC for watching movies, and also because my XBox 360 is a 1080p movie playing Media Center as well.

If the title and cute Asian girl saying "fuck you" with a smile didn't give you the hint, Netflix did not reach the goal.  Now that, in and of itself, would not be worthy of a rant post (even on a grilled cheese blog).  Lies and poor service do qualify!

"Unlimited" streaming really means "one stream" at a time (or possible one to four streams if you have a higher plan, site isn't really clear on this point).  Oh, "one stream" is in quotes because it really means one PC - Netflix DRM (custom required install) lock streaming of your account to that machine.  So when I tested on my laptop, everything was okay.  When I testing my desktop, I was told my "one stream" was already in use - by the laptop sitting in the corner, switched off.

After a good 30 minutes trying to find the magic "I'm done now" button on the laptop, and googling for ideas (because the Netflix help was useless), I called the number that was showing on my desktop in the error message.  Please hold for 30 minutes...

About 10 minutes in, I saw a number on the Netflix website with "wait times 1 minute."  I hung up and called that number, and true to the claim, a human picked up.  Jake told me that I would need to be transferred to tech support for this issue so they could "change a flag" to fix the problem.  Would I need to do this every time?  He wasn't sure - in a way that conveyed "yes, you will but I don't want you complaining to me."  Transferring to tech support.... please hold 36 minutes.

Unable to cope with additional 6 more minutes from the previous attempt, I looked on the site for an email address I could use.  I figured I'd just send an email and check on it in the morning.  Oh, what's this?  Netflix doesn't have email support - phone only!  I decided to test the XBox 360 with the Media Center plugin - a message came up that streaming on the XBox wasn't supported (not Netflix's fault, unless you count this as something which they should be supporting themselves and not leave to the user's to figure out).

So, from my email timestamps I was a Netflix member again for exactly 1 hour and 19 minutes.

Best and WORST B'day Party

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had Hannah's birthday party at a fun sounding place called Thunderworld USA Family Fun Center.

First the good.

There was a great mezzanine area for birthday parties wherein parents could congregate and have immediate view of almost the entire area children would be running around in.

They have beer and mixed drinks.

They have skee ball, a DDR knock-off, a number of decent arcade games, a 'Deal or No Deal' machine, pool, and bowling inside the place as well as batting cages and go-karts outside.

The pizza was waaaaay better than what you get at Chucky Cheeze's and the girl that helped us with our party (an underling apparently far down the managerial ladder) was helpful and unobtrusive.

Now for the bad.

We ended up really needing to have gone to a few review sites before booking this place. There weren't many out there but if you're persistent you can find people not stymied by rage at their experience or tolerant of the subpar.

Yahoo! Travel had 6 reviews but is typical of our time there.

Insider Pages has only 2 reviews but the first one was what we'd had.

The party was expensive. Like Chucky Cheeze's without the stupid dancing rat.

Beer is $3 a cup and they don't open the bar for pool and mixed drinks until 5pm, even on Saturday.

Their prizes are even more insanely priced than Chucky Cheeze's and cheaper looking (how that's possible I don't know).

The bowling alley itself was large but the lanes were like looking at the ocean in freeze frame. That would normally not stop us from enjoying ourselves and had no real effect... except hilarity when Jose bowled a gutter ball that turned into a spare pickup in the next lane over for a young girl who'd bowled a split. An overriding factor for our dissatisfaction were the reoccurring glitches in their lane computers.

1) It took 15min for an underling to turn on our ball return after we'd told them it wasn't on.

2) Randomly throughout the game, the pins would be cleared. Usually when this happens you just miss out on the rest of the frame. Not at this place. Here, it still registered in the system what you bowled but unless your next throw was a strike (so it'd register a spare) it wouldn't count your first throw and allow you a third to finish off that turn.

Sound confusing? Try doing it.

Then there were a couple of other one-time glitches including the one frame Jose had to bowl 7 balls before it finally went to the next person.

Plus you had to pay up front for games and shoes. No prob. Disturbing to those who haven't had to do so, but it didn't bother me. The problem there came when Willie (who'd paid for 2 games in advance) tried to get a refund on the second game. At no time was payment on the first game in question. There was a sign that said: No cash refund. Cool. He paid with a card.

The manager staunchly refused to refund him.

Willie took issue at the sheer incompetence of the management and their seeming inability to understand that every second they argued with him lost them points in the eyes of all the parents whom would have otherwise booked events there as well. It wasn't a cash refund he was asking for. Just a credit back to his card.

When she finally capitulated after threat of contestation of the entire monetary transaction she then effectively told him to get the hell out.

After that hassle I'd give the experience in its entirety a 2.5 out of 5.

You have been warned. Proceed with caution.